I love books. I love the smell of books and the feel of them, and I’m even attached to particular editions of books. My husband shares this addiction. In fact, when we were looking for our current home and the discussion was “chic semi-detached or townhouse closer to downtown” or “suburban bungalow with room for our 12, no, 14 Billy bookcases” - we chose the bungalow.
Despite being a believer in digital media, I secretly assumed that e-readers wouldn’t be for me. Then I got an iPhone, and my son was in hospital, and I was able to download the book we’d been reading together at home as well as a book for me to read when he was sleeping and it was not just convenient, but fun.
I’m not sure I’ll be converting to digital entirely overnight - but I did realize that if I continue to like reading books electronically I could have more furniture. Or live downtown! Ahem. Okay, now I’m playing attention.
So Monday night I got to check out the Kobo eReader, which is launching this May. Kobo is a “device neutral” global eBook retailer backed by Indigo Books & Music and Borders among others (that means you can read your downloaded books across a range of devices). And now they are launching their own reader.
What’s nice about it? First: The price tag. It’s going to retail for $149, which got my attention right away. While I think I’m going to continue to get into ebooks, I might change my mind. So not investing quite so much money up front is appealing.
The screen technology is e ink (black and white, and you can read it in direct sunlight), and the screen is 6″. The device is pretty light weight. It’s also pretty, and it has a quilted back which I found made it surprisingly nice to hold. When you power off, the screen shows the last book you were reading, which is a nice touch.
In terms of what you can do with it, it’s designed pretty much just for reading. It doesn’t have the 3G network capability that the Kindle has, so you probably will be uploading books through a USB cable attached to your computer. However, it also has Bluetooth which means you can hook it up to your cell phone if you find yourself experiencing a book emergency on the road.
For people who like single devices to do everything, this is a disadvantage. For people like me, who might prefer that they can take a bunch of books on vacation loaded onto a lightweight device that won’t ring, nor will be borrowed in order to play Bejeweled, it’s an advantage.
What’s your experience with e-readers been like?